Electronic Control Unit, Gateway Circuit for an Airbag Electronic Control Unit, Safety System for a Vehicle, and Environmental Sensor Element

ABSTRACT

An electronic control unit includes a signal input circuit configured to receive a sensor signal from a radar sensor or from a lidar sensor and a processing circuit configured to determine a first condition based on a first representation of the sensor signal, and to generate an activation signal in response to the first condition.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/041,031, filed Jul. 20, 2018, which application claims the benefit ofGerman Application No. 10 2017 116 411.1, filed on Jul. 20, 2017, whichapplications are hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments relate to an electronic control unit, gateway circuitscouplable to an airbag electronic control unit and to a safety systemfor a vehicle using environmental sensors.

BACKGROUND

Vehicles, such as automobiles or trucks, often comprise impact sensorsto determine, whether the vehicle hit an object or whether an object hitthe vehicle and to subsequently cause safety measures to protect thepeople within the vehicle, e.g. by causing the firing of one or moreairbags. The commonly-used sensors, for example pressure sensors in apressure chamber or inertial sensors are sensitive to the impact itself,i.e. they provide a sensor response once an impact had already occurred.In other words, the condition that causes the safety measures is theimpact itself. The electronic control unit (ECU) used to evaluate thesensor signal is required to evaluate the sensor signals with a very lowlatency in order to cause the safety measures in time so that the safetymeasures are not executed too late, to still protect the passengerswithin the vehicle. Due to the very low latency, evaluation algorithmsof the sensor signals are often required to be simple in order to assuretimely execution. Therefore, the decision to take any safety measures orthe safety measures chosen may be suboptimal due to the limitedprocessing time available. Further, the choice of safety measures to betaken may be limited, if an impact is only detectable once it hadoccurred. Some measures increasing the passenger's safety can eventuallynot be taken since their execution takes too long to be effective afterthe impact had already occurred. Hence, there appears to be room forimprovement of the conventional systems.

SUMMARY

In accordance with an embodiment, an electronic control unit includes asignal input circuit configured to receive a sensor signal from a radarsensor or from a lidar Sensor and a processing circuit configured todetermine a first condition based on a first representation of thesensor signal, and to generate an activation signal in response to thefirst condition.

In accordance with another embodiment, a safety system for a vehicleincludes a first environmental sensor configured to provide first sensorsignals; a second environmental sensor configured to provide secondsensor signals, wherein the first sensor signal and the second sensorsignal are loosely coupled and a field of view for the firstenvironmental sensor and the second environmental sensor are at leastpartially overlapping; a first gateway circuit comprising a first signaloutput configured to generate a first representation of the first sensorsignal, and a second signal output configured to forward a secondrepresentation of the first sensor signal to a physical layer of acommunication system; a second gateway circuit comprising a first signaloutput configured to generate a first representation of the secondsensor signal, and a second signal output configured to forward a secondrepresentation of the second sensor signal to the physical layer of thecommunication system; and an airbag electronic control unit configuredto identify a first condition based on the first representation of thefirst sensor signal, the first representation of the second sensorsignal, or a combination of the first representation of the first sensorsignal and the first representation of the second sensor signal, whereinthe airbag electronic control unit is further configured to generate anactivation signal in response to the first condition.

In accordance with a further embodiment, an environmental sensor elementfor a vehicle includes a radar sensor or a lidar sensor configured toproduce a sensor signal covering a field of view; wherein theenvironmental sensor element is configured to provide a firstrepresentation of the sensor signal; wherein the environmental sensorelement is further configured to provide a second representation of thesensor signal; and wherein an interface of the environmental sensorelement couplable to a physical layer of a communication system, theinterface is further configured to output the first representation ofthe sensor signal, the second representation of the sensor signal, orboth the first representation of the sensor signal and the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal to the physical layer.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some embodiments of apparatuses and/or methods will be described in thefollowing by way of embodiment only, and with reference to theaccompanying figures, in which

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of an Electronic control unitconfigured to process a sensor signal;

FIG. 2 illustrates a further embodiment of an Electronic control unitconfigured to process at least two representations of sensor signals;

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment for a representation of a sensor signalas provided by an environmental radar sensor array;

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow chart of the processing within an embodimentof an Electronic control unit, a gateway circuit, or an environmentalsensor element;

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a gateway circuit for anenvironmental sensor;

FIG. 6 illustrates a further embodiment of a gateway circuit for atleast two environmental sensors;

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a vehicle safety system; and

FIG. 8 schematically illustrates an embodiment of an environmentalsensor element.

Corresponding numerals and symbols in different figures generally referto corresponding parts unless otherwise indicated. The figures are drawnto clearly illustrate the relevant aspects of the preferred embodimentsand are not necessarily drawn to scale. To more clearly illustratecertain embodiments, a letter indicating variations of the samestructure, material, or process step may follow a figure number.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

Some embodiments of an electronic control unit comprise a signal inputcircuit configured to receive a sensor signal from a radar (radiodetection and ranging) sensor or from a lidar (light detection andranging) sensor as well as a processing circuit configured to determinea first condition based on a first representation of the sensor signal.The processing circuit generates an activation signal in response to thefirst condition. An electronic control unit (ECU) capable of receivingsensor signals from radar sensors or lidar sensors may be able todetermine an upcoming impact before it actually occurs.

Radar sensors or lidar sensors provide information on an environment ofthe vehicle, so that an impact may be determined or predicted—before itactually happens. Therefore, there is time to determine the firstcondition from a first representation of the sensor signal. It will beappreciated that with an impact sensor of the prior art, suchdetermination of a first condition prior to an impact is not possible.

If the first condition is met an activation signal may be issued. Theactivation signal may cause the safety measures required for aparticular expected impact, in order to either prevent the expectedimpact or at least mitigate its consequences.

The time available prior to an expected or estimated impact may also beused to cause safety measures other than those conventionally available.With the first condition identified prior to impact, also safetymeasures requiring more time for execution are now within the scope ofthe application. According to some embodiments, the activation signalmay not only cause the activation of an irreversible safety measure,like the firing of an airbag, but also the activation of a reversiblesafety measure. A reversible safety measure may have a longer executiontime at the benefit of the possibility of reversing the safety measureor stopping the safety measure during its execution. That is, anembodiment of an electronic control unit may be capable of deciding,depending on the first condition, whether to generate a reversibleactivating signal for activating a reversible safety measure or togenerate an irreversible activating signal for activating anirreversible safety measure. Having the capability to cause a reversiblesafety measure, irreversible safety measures, or a combination of both,may not only increase the safety of the vehicle's passengers but alsosave on costs, for example, if reversible safety measures not requiringsubsequent repair of the car are sufficient to protect the passengersaccording to the first condition determined.

For example, if an upcoming impact with low speed or with a soft objectis determined as the first condition, it may be sufficient to tension aseatbelt of a vehicle's passenger as opposed to take the irreversiblesafety measure of firing an airbag.

According to some embodiments, the reversible activating signal can beconfigured to cause at least one of the closing of at least one windowof a vehicle and the closing of at least one roof portion of the vehicleto avoid intrusion of objects into the interior of the vehicle. Otherreversible safety measures include the tensioning of at least oneseatbelt of the vehicle or adjusting of at least one seat of the vehiclein order to bring a passenger of the vehicle in a position in which animpact or a strong deceleration force to the body of the passengercauses minimum possible damage.

According to further embodiments, the reversible activating signal maycause a suppression of an emergency braking of a vehicle for a certainamount of time, although a deceleration of the vehicle appears tomitigate the damages of an upcoming impact. Having knowledge on anenvironment of a vehicle, the ECU may be enabled to determine a firstcondition in which the overall threat to the passengers of the vehiclemay be minimized, if one particular impact scenario can be avoided bysuppressing an emergency braking even if that decision comes at the costof accepting a higher speed for another impact scenario.

In particular, different deformation characteristics of vehicles mayalso be considered during the decision making. For example, side impactshit the cabin of the vehicle at a position where there is minor or noroom for deformation before there is direct impact on a passenger. Incontrast thereto for a front impact, there is more room for deformationof the cabin of the vehicle before there is direct impact on apassenger. Therefore, if the ECU determines an upcoming side impact aswell as an upcoming front impact thereafter as the first condition,suppressing the emergency braking long enough may be appropriate.Suppressing the emergency braking may allow the vehicle to leave an areawhere the upcoming side impact is to occur may significantly increasethe passenger's safety. The overall threat to the passengers may in factbe decreased, even if the velocity at which the front impactsubsequently occurs, may be higher as compared to a conventionalscenario with instant emergency braking.

Further or additional to the reversible activating signal causingreversible safety measures, the activation signal may be an irreversibleactivating signal causing at least one of an emergency braking of avehicle, and a firing of an airbag.

Sensor signals of radar sensors or lidar sensors may be available with ahigh resolution, for example to support autonomous drive functions. Forexample, a sensor signal generated by radar or lidar sensors may becapable of identifying objects with high spatial resolution and withhigh spectral resolution to distinguish also minor position and velocitydifferences. If, for example, the sensor signal is also used forautonomous drive systems or advanced drivers assistance (ADAS) systemsboth relying on a reconstruction of the environment of the vehicle withsufficient resolution in order to take the appropriate drivingdecisions, high resolution sensor signals may already be availablewithin a system of a vehicle so configured. The sensor signals may bepresent with high resolution to be able to decide, for example, whatsteering action is required to avoid touching or hitting an object.Likewise (high resolution) sensor signals may be used in order to avoidleaving the road. While such autonomous or assisted driving decisionsmay be less time critical, the decision as to whether an activationsignal is to be generated by the electronic control unit to cause asafety measure may need to be taken with a much lower latency. Someembodiments of electronic control units are, therefore, optionallyfurther configured to generate the first representation of the sensorsignal which may enable appropriate and time-sensitive processing withinthe processing circuit itself, based on the sensor signal available fromthe radar sensor and/or the lidar sensor.

According to some embodiments, the first representation of the sensorsignal may be derived from a second representation of the sensor signalwhich is received from an environmental sensor. According to someembodiments, the first representation of the sensor signal may bederived with a lower resolution than a second representation of thesensor signal.

According to further embodiments, the processing circuit of theelectronic control unit may be capable of also generating the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal from the received sensor signal andto forward the second representation to a first output interface of theelectronic control unit, which is couplable to a physical layer of acommunication system. The electronic control unit may thus be enabled toachieve fast decision making while further components using the sensorsignal may operate on a second representation of the sensor signal,which may, for example, have a higher resolution. An electronic controlunit according to an embodiment may hence by integrated in existingsystems already having further components operating on the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal without the necessity to modify theexisting components, sensors, or both.

According to some embodiments, the processing circuit of the electroniccontrol unit is configured to extract the first representation from thesecond representation received within the sensor signal. This enablesthe electronic control unit to use a sensor signal appropriately set upfor further components within the vehicle, while being enabled tooperate with the required latency since it is capable of extracting andthus generating the required first representation of the sensor signalitself. The ECU and its functionality may also be included withouteffort and high additional costs into already existing communicationsystem, e.g. into an autonomous driving system.

According to some embodiments, the second representation of the sensorsignal has a higher resolution than the first representation of thesensor signal. While further components within the vehicle, such as forexample autonomous driving control units may have the capability ofusing the second representation with a higher resolution, the electroniccontrol unit may use the first representation with the lower resolutionso as to enable the electronic control unit to the required fastdecision making. For example, according to some embodiments, theresolution of the first representation of the sensor signal is, for agiven instant of sensor data, lower in terms of at least one of anangular resolution (one of an azimuthal or an elevational resolution, orboth), a spatial range covered, or a relative velocity.

While some embodiments of electronic control units may be configured togenerate a first representation of the sensor signal and a secondrepresentation of the sensor signal within its processing circuit,further embodiments are implemented as a gateway circuit which iscouplable to an airbag electronic control unit. The gateway circuitenables the use of an airbag electronic control unit together withenvironmental sensors, such as for example with a radar sensor or lidarsensor. To this end, embodiments of a gateway circuit couplable to anairbag electronic control unit comprise a signal input configured toreceive a sensor signal from an environmental sensor of a vehicle and afirst signal output configured to forward a first representation of thesensor signal of the environmental sensor to the ECU. The gatewaycircuit further comprises a second signal output configured to forward asecond representation of the sensor signal of the environmental sensorto a physical layer of a communication system for further use of othercomponents within the vehicle or otherwise attached to the communicationsystem.

Using a gateway circuit according to an embodiment may enabledeliberately combining airbag electronic control units together withexisting further electronic control units, such as for example anautonomous drive electronic control unit, which may require the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal in order to be able to operate asdesired.

According to some embodiments, the gateway circuit is capable ofidentifying whether a received sensor telegram comprises the firstrepresentation of the sensor signal or the second representation of thesensor signal based on a tag within an individual sensor telegram. Thismay allow for an efficient hardware implementation of the gatewaycircuit in systems where the sensor signal is created having a series ofsensor telegrams. It is then sufficient for the gateway circuit to becapable of identifying the tags within the sensor telegram toappropriately direct the content of the sensor telegram to the firstsignal output or to the second signal output, respectively. According tosome embodiments, the gateway circuit is configured to provide thesecond representation of the sensor signal according to a protocolusable within the communication system so as to forward the secondrepresentation to further associated processing entities connected tothe gateway by means of the communication system.

Further embodiments of a gateway circuit serve as a gateway for multipleassociated environmental sensors, so that the gateway circuit furthercomprises a second signal input configured to receive a further sensorsignal from a second environmental sensor of the vehicle. Further, thefirst signal output of the gateway circuit is configured to forward thefirst representation of the further sensor signal to the airbag ECU.Similarly, the second signal output is configured to forward the secondrepresentation of the further sensor signal to the physical layer of thecommunication system.

According to some embodiments, an environmental sensor element for avehicle capable of cooperating together with an ECU comprises a radar orlidar sensor configured to produce a sensor signal covering a field ofview. The sensor element is configured to provide a first representationof the sensor signal as well as a second representation of the sensorsignal. The environmental sensor further comprises an interfacecouplable to a physical layer of a communication system. The interfaceis configured to output the first representation of the sensor signal,the second representation of the sensor signal, or both the first therepresentation of the sensor signal and the second representation of thesensor signal to the physical layer in order to provide differentrepresentations of the sensor signal for an ECU as well as for othercomponents or ECUs within the system. If the environmental sensorelement has an interface that is configured to output the differentrepresentations of the sensor signals using one or more or sensortelegrams, the different representations may be transported via a commoncommunication channel. In order to enable the subsequent components toidentify the different representations without a high analysis effort,some embodiments of environmental sensor elements insert a specific taginto individual sensor telegrams, the tag indicating whether theindividual sensor telegram is part of the first representation of thesensor signal or of the second representation of the sensor signal.

Some embodiments of a safety system for a vehicle comprise a firstenvironmental sensor providing first sensor signals, a secondenvironmental sensor providing second sensor signals, the secondenvironmental sensor being loosely coupled to the first environmentalsensor, while a field of view of the first environmental sensor and thesecond environmental sensor are at least partially overlapping. Withinthe system, a gateway circuit comprises a first signal output configuredto generate a first representation of the first sensor signal and asecond signal output configured to forward a second representation ofthe first sensor signal to a physical layer of a communication system.Likewise, a second gateway circuit comprises a first signal outputconfigured to generate a first representation of the second sensorsignal at the second signal output configured to forward a secondrepresentation of the second sensor signal to the physical layer of thecommunication system. The safety system further comprises an airbag ECUconfigured to identify a first condition based on the firstrepresentation of the first sensor signal, the first representation ofthe second sensor signal, or a combination of the first representationof the first sensor signal and the first representation of the secondsensor signal. The airbag ECU is configured to generate an activationsignal in response to the first condition. The activation signal isconfigured to cause the execution of safety measures.

Using at least two environmental sensors within the safety system, theenvironmental sensors that exhibit an at least partially overlappingfield of view may allow determining information on an observed objectthat indicates an overall likelihood or the time of an impact of theobserved object to the vehicle. For example, the combination of thefirst representation of the first sensor signal and the firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal may provide an estimate for adirection of movement of an object within the partially overlappingfields of view. For example, a first condition that indicates a futureimpact may be identified if the moving object is identified in only oneof the first representation of the first sensor signal and the secondrepresentation of the second sensor signal after the object wasdetectable within the first representation of the first sensor signaland the first representation of the second sensor signal. If, underthese circumstances, an object can no longer be identified within afield of view of one of the sensors, one can conclude, that the objecthas at least a component of relative movement in a directionperpendicular to an axis connecting the positions of the environmentalsensors. If, for example, the environmental sensors are placed at a sideof a vehicle, one can conclude that the moving object is moving towardsthe side of the vehicle and a condition of an upcoming side impact canbe determined.

Various embodiments will now be described more fully with reference tothe accompanying drawings in which some embodiments are illustrated. Inthe figures, the thicknesses of lines, layers and/or regions may beexaggerated for clarity.

Accordingly, while further embodiments are capable of variousmodifications and alternative forms, some particular embodiments thereofare shown in the figures and will subsequently be described in detail.However, this detailed description does not limit further embodiments tothe particular forms described. Further embodiments may cover allmodifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope ofthe disclosure. Like numbers refer to like or similar elementsthroughout the description of the figures, which may be implementedidentically or in modified form when compared to one another whileproviding for the same or a similar functionality.

It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being“connected” or “coupled” to another element, the elements may bedirectly connected or coupled or via one or more intervening elements.If two elements A and B are combined using an “or”, this is to beunderstood to disclose all possible combinations, i.e. only A, only B aswell as A and B. An alternative wording for the same combinations is “atleast one of A and B”. The same applies for combinations of more thantwo Elements.

The terminology used herein for the purpose of describing particularembodiments is not intended to be limiting for further embodiments.Whenever a singular form such as “a,” “an” and “the” is used and usingonly a single element is neither explicitly or implicitly defined asbeing mandatory, further embodiments may also use plural elements toimplement the same functionality. Likewise, when a functionality issubsequently described as being implemented using multiple elements,further embodiments may implement the same functionality using a singleelement or processing entity. It will be further understood that theterms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes” and/or “including,” whenused, specify the presence of the stated features, integers, steps,operations, processes, acts, elements and/or components, but do notpreclude the presence or addition of one or more other features,integers, steps, operations, processes, acts, elements, componentsand/or any group thereof.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an embodiment of an Electronic controlunit 100. The Electronic control unit 100 comprises a signal inputcircuit 102 configured to receive a sensor signal from a radar sensor orfrom a Lidar Sensor used as environmental sensor no within a safetysystem for a vehicle 120. The vehicle 120 and the environmental sensorno are shown for illustrative purposes only. The signal input circuit102 may be connectable to arbitrary communication media enabling thereceipt of sensor signals and support any protocol usable with thecommunication medium of the particular implementation. For example, thesensor signal may be received as a series of individual sensor telegramsat the signal circuit 102. The sensor signal may be received usingarbitrary communication protocols, e.g. using a sensor specificcommunication protocols like one of Single Edge Nibble Transmission(SENT) or Short PWM Code (SPC). Other examples for usable protocols areBus Protocols like Controller Area Network (CAN), FlexRay, LocalInterconnect Network (LIN), or Ethernet.

The Electronic control unit 100 further comprises a processing circuit104. The processing circuit 104 determines a first condition based on afirst representation of the sensor signal and generates an activationsignal 106 in response to the first condition. The first representationof the sensor signal may be chosen or created to fit the processingcapabilities of the processing circuit 104 and the time available todetermine the first condition the processing circuit is searching for.

It will be appreciated that radar sensors or lidar sensors provideinformation on an environment of the vehicle so that an impact may bedetermined or predicted before it actually happens, providing at leastthe additional time budget between the occurrence of the first conditionand the expected impact. In fact, the expected impact may even beprevented, depending on circumstances.

The additional time budget may also be used to cause safety measuresother than those conventionally available, like firing of an airbag orcausing an emergency braking, since also safety measures that requiremore time for execution are now within the scope of the application.According to some embodiments, the activation signal 106 may not onlycause the activation of an irreversible safety measure, like firing anairbag or causing an emergency braking, but also the activation of areversible safety measure. Embodiments of an electronic control unit 100may be capable of deciding, depending on the first condition, whether togenerate a reversible activating signal for activating a reversiblesafety measure or to generate an irreversible activating signal foractivating an irreversible safety measure.

Examples of reversible safety measures are (without being exhaustive)closing at least one window of a vehicle, closing at least one roofportion of the vehicle, tensioning at least one seat belt of thevehicle, adjusting at least one seat of the vehicle, or suppressing anemergency breaking of a vehicle, as shall be explained further down inmore detail.

A particular attractive way to determine the first condition is the useof a neuronal network. Properly trained neuronal networks have thecapability to perform complex analyses with low latency and highreliability. Hence, even multiple sensor signals from radar or lidarsensors may be analyzed within an embodiment of an Electronic controlunit with the required low latency if a neuronal network is used withinthe processing circuit 104.

In a vehicle having autonomous driving or ADAS functionalities, multipleenvironmental sensors like radar sensors, lidar sensors, or camerasensors may already be present. Typically, these environmental sensorsignals are processed by the ADAS system with larger resources thanconventional ECUs used for say, an airbag system. Therefore, theenvironmental sensors may provide the sensor signals in a representationwhich cannot be appropriately processed by the Electronic control unit100. For example, a second representation of the sensor signals providedwithin those systems may have a higher resolution than the resolutionpossible for the first representation of the sensor signals. However,embodiments of airbag ECUs provide or generate the first representationof the sensor signals with a lower resolution so that the airbag ECU isenabled to also process data of existing environmental sensors. Addingan embodiment of an Electronic control unit 100 to an existing system,therefore, requires no changes of the environmental sensors and offurther existing ECUs. Adding an embodiment of an airbag ECU may alsoallow changing the existing components or their software withoutrequiring a subsequent modification of the added airbag ECU since thegeneration of the lower resolution representation within the airbag ECUis independent from the existent components. This may be of particularinterest since modifications of an airbag ECU or its software would comeat the cost of a subsequent validation process in which it is to beproven that the software of the airbag ECU is fault-free.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of an Electronic Control Unit 200 thatmay be included without hardly any changes to, e.g., an existingautonomous drive system. The Electronic Control Unit 200 is enabled toadditionally process the sensor signals of already existingenvironmental sensors. Similar to the embodiment of FIG. 1 , theElectronic Control Unit 200 comprises a signal input circuit 202configured to receive a sensor signal 201 from a radar sensor or from aLidar sensor as well as a processing circuit 204 to determine a firstcondition using a first representation of the sensor signal 205 a—alsoreferred to as first sensor signal representation 205 a or firstrepresentation 205 a. The processing circuit 204 is further configuredto generate an activation signal 206 in response to the first condition.Further to the embodiment of FIG. 1 , the processing circuit 204 is alsoconfigured to generate a second representation of the sensor signal 205b—also referred to as second sensor signal representation 205 b orsecond representation 205 b. The processing circuit 204 is furtherconfigured to forward the second representation of the sensor signal 205b to a first output interface 210 which is couplable to a physical layerof a communication system.

If, for example, the Electronic Control Unit 200 supports the protocolused within an autonomous drive system at both, its signal input circuit202 and its first output interface 210, the Electronic Control Unit 200may be inserted between an autonomous drive ECU and its associatedenvironmental sensors to also make use of the environmental sensorsignals for causing safety measures without requiring a further adaptionof the autonomous drive system. To this end the first output interface210 may support arbitrary protocols, such as for example CAN, FlexRay,or Ethernet.

An Electronic Control Unit 200 of further embodiments may be capable ofreceiving sensor signals from two or more environmental sensors. In suchan implementation, the input circuit 202 is configured to receive atleast one further sensor signal from a second environmental sensor ofthe vehicle. Likewise, the first output interface 210 is then furtherconfigured to forward at least a first representation of the furthersensor signal.

In some applications, the second representation of the sensor signal 205b for the autonomous drive ECU may require a higher resolution than thefirst representation of the sensor signal 205 a for the ElectronicControl Unit 200 so that the processing circuit 204 is required toreduce the resolution of the second representation of the sensor signal205 b or to extract the first representation of the sensor signal 205 afrom the second representation of the sensor signal 205 b.

A particular example as to how a reduction of resolution may be achievedwith low computational effort is illustrated subsequently whilereferring to the representation of data provided by radar or lidarsensors as their sensor signal in FIG. 3 . The radar data cube 300illustrated in FIG. 3 as one particular example for a sensor signalgenerated by means of a single sensor has three dimensions. The firstdimension 302 is indicative of the distance of an object causing areflection of the radar signal sent by the radar sensor. The seconddimension 304 is indicative of the receive channel of the sensor, whichtypically comprises an array of receive antennas, each receive antennacorresponding to one receive channel. The third dimension 306 indicatesthe relative velocity between the sensor and an object reflecting aradar signal. Each of the three dimensional cubes illustrated in FIG. 3has associated therewith a coefficient showing signal power or a complexvalue of the signal describes the strength of an echo of the radarsignal associated to the parameter set represented by the bin in thefirst, second, and third dimension 302, 304, 306.

For a continuous wave radar system, for example, the distance of thereflection is determined by a frequency difference between the radarsignal presently transmitted and the reflected radar signal presentlyreceived. If the signal strength per frequency difference is evaluatedby means of a Fourier analysis, the strength of the reflection isproportional to the Fourier coefficient found for the frequencydifference. Therefore, the order of the coefficient comprisesinformation on the distance, while the magnitude of the coefficientprovides information on the size of the reflecting object. Theinformation on the relative velocity between the reflecting object andthe sensor is additionally determined by evaluating a Doppler shift ofthe reflected signal relative to the transmitted signal. In such animplementation, the coefficients associated to the individual bins maybe proportional to the magnitude of the determined Fourier coefficients.

The resolution of the sensor signal or the radar cube 300 is given bythe grid in all three dimensions 302, 304, and 306. A goal of reducingthe resolution of the first representation of the sensor signal 205 a isto reduce the amount of data the Electronic Control Unit has to dealwith to enable fast processing given the limited computational power ofthe ECU.

Assuming that the radar cube 300 is provided as the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal, the resolution of therepresentation can be decreased in various ways and with respect tovarious characteristics to arrive at a first representation having alower resolution.

For decreasing the resolution of the distance, two or more neighboringbins may be merged in the first dimension 302. Further, if one is onlyinterested in finding a condition that is indicative of an impact of anobject to the vehicle, distances above a certain minimum distance may bedisregarded without disadvantage, in turn resulting in a reduction ofdata to be further processed within the processing circuit 204.

The resolution of the relative velocity may, for example, be reduced bymerging two or more neighboring bins in the third dimension 306. Similarto disregarding reflections above a certain distance, entriescorresponding to a relative movement away from the sensor may becompletely disregarded for the purpose of collision prediction, whichmay also result in a significant amount of data reduction.

The resolution may further be decreased with respect to the radar crosssection of the objects receiving an entry within the radar data cube.For continuous wave radar, this can be achieved by increasing thethreshold for the Fourier coefficients to be considered within the radardata cube. For the purpose of collision detection and generation ofappropriate safety measures, restricting the analysis to objects above acertain size may be sufficient and advantageous in terms of processingcomplexity.

Based on the radar data cube in FIG. 3 , the spatial and angularresolution may also be decreased by merging two or more neighboring binsin the second dimension 304.

As elaborated on previously, the second representation of the sensorsignal 205 b may have a higher resolution than required for the firstrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 a for a given instant of sensordata (which is, e.g., represented by a single radio data cube in FIG. 3) in terms of at least one of angular resolution, spatial range covered,and relative velocity. Of course, the resolution may also be reducedwith respect to more of these aspects at a time. Using one or acombination of several of the previously described examples of datareduction, an algorithm may be implemented to reduce the amount of dataof a given radar data cube with regard to one or more of the dimensionsillustrated in FIG. 3 . The so generated low-resolution representationof the radar data cube may subsequently be processed within anElectrical Control Unit having limited processing power, such as forexample within an airbag ECU.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of an example for a method of datareduction and forwarding within an embodiment of an Electrical ControlUnit. Data reduction is performed based on a radar data cube asillustrated in FIG. 3 , which is received as a high-resolution sensorsignal 320, also referred to as high-resolution representation 320 or asthe second representation of the sensor signal. The high-resolutionrepresentation 320 is processed to generate the first representation ofthe sensor signal 330 with a lower resolution, also referred to as lowresolution representation 330. Just as an example, it is assumed thatonly the range (indicated as distance 302 in FIG. 3 ) is covered by thehigh-resolution sensor signal 320 is reduced indicated by theschematically illustrated low resolution radar data cube 330 which has areduced extension in the 3rd dimension 302 (best seen in FIG. 3 ). Thefirst condition causing the generation of an activation signal within anembodiment of an Electrical Control Unit is determined based on thelow-resolution representation 330 as illustrated by means of functionalblock 350. If the first condition is determined, the activation signalis generated in step 370.

Optionally the high-resolution representation 320 of the sensor signalis output or forwarded in step 360 as the second representation of thesensor signal for further processing by, for example, an autonomousdrive ECU.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a gateway circuit 400 couplable toan airbag Electronic Control Unit 450 having an input interface 452 fora sensor signal. The gateway circuit 400 enables the use of an airbagelectronic control unit 450 based on sensor signals of environmentalsensors, such as for example a radar sensor, a lidar sensor, or a camerasensor. The gateway circuit 400 comprises a signal input 402 configuredto receive a sensor signal from the environmental sensor 440 of avehicle. A first signal output 408 is configured to forward a firstrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 a of the environmental sensor440 to the airbag ECU 450. A second signal output 410 is configured toforward a second representation 205 b of the sensor signal of theenvironmental sensor 440 to a physical layer of a communication system470. The communication system 470 is schematically illustrated as a bussystem of the vehicle in FIG. 5 . The communication system 470 may havefurther Electronic Control Units 472, 474 and 476 attached thereto sothat these may further use the second representation 205 b of the sensorsignal, while the airbag Electronic Control Unit 450 is enabled toprocess the first representation of the sensor signal 205 a. Using agateway circuit 400 may enable deliberately connect to the same sensorand to the same sensor interface to the airbag electronic control unit450 together with further electronic control units 472, 474, and 476.Using the gateway provides different types of environmental sensor datato different applications. According to some embodiments, the gatewaycircuit 400 is configured to provide the second representation of thesensor signal 205 b according to a protocol usable within thecommunication system 470 so as to forward the second representation 205b to the further electronic control units 472, 474, and 476 withouthaving to modify them.

Using a gateway circuit 400 may reduce revalidation costs for thesoftware of the airbag ECU due to a software change within theautonomous drive ECU can be saved which would otherwise arise if theautonomous drive ECU would receive the sensor signals first. This isbecause whenever a modification in an airbag system occurs, it is to beproven that the software of the airbag ECU is fault-free. If theautonomous drive ECU received the sensor signals first and a softwarechange within the autonomous drive ECU was performed, a modification ofthe sensor signals might potentially be caused by the changed software.Consequently, every change within the autonomous drive ECU would requirea revalidation of the fault free functionality of the airbag ECU. Usinga gateway circuit 400, instead, enables to deliberately change thesoftware within the autonomous drive ECU without automaticallynecessitating a revalidation of the airbag ECU.

The forwarding of the first representation of the sensor signal 205 aand of the second representation of the sensor signal 205 b may beachieved according to several alternatives within the gateway circuit400.

According to some embodiments, the gateway circuit 400 is configured toreceive both representations of the sensor signals as sensor telegramsover a communication bus. It will be appreciated that a complete firstrepresentation 205 a or a complete second representation 205 b willtypically require more than one telegram for transmission over thecommunication bus. So an individual sensor telegram may compriseportions of first or second representation 205 a, 205 b. It may be ofinterest for portions of the first representation of the sensor signal205 a within a sensor telegram to be labeled using a first tag. Likewiseportions of a second representation 205 b of the sensor signal within asensor telegram may be labeled using a second tag.

An embodiment of environmental sensor to generate sensor telegrams fortransmission over the bus is illustrated in FIG. 8 and will be describedsubsequently.

When receiving sensor signal representations 205 a, 205 b implemented assensor telegrams, the gateway circuit 400 identifies whether a receivedsensor telegram comprises at least a portion of a first representationof the sensor signal 205 a or at least a portion of the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 b based on the tag within anindividual sensor telegram. This may allow for an efficient hardwareimplementation of the gateway circuit in systems where the sensor signalis created having a series of sensor telegrams since the gateway circuitonly needs to be capable of identifying the tags within the sensortelegram to appropriately direct the content of the sensor telegram tothe first signal output or to the second signal output, respectively.More precisely, in such a setup the gateway could be implemented rathersimple, as there is no intelligence required to analyze the actualportion of the sensor signal representation within the telegram.

If, for example, the CAN bus is used to transport the sensor signal, theCAN messages of the sensors may have identical ID's—an example of tagsin the terminology of the above description—when comprising at least aportion pertaining to a single representation of the sensor signal.Alternatively, the CAN messages may have two different IDs whencomprising at least a portion of the first representation of the sensorsignal and at least a portion the second representation of the sensorsignal. For clarity one sensor telegram would then comprise both high-and low-resolution portions within one sensor telegram. In this event,CAN messages with the different IDs may be sent in any sequence as aseries of sensor telegrams.

According to further embodiments, the gateway circuit 400 may beconfigured to receive the second representation of the sensor signal 205b via the signal input 402 and to internally derive the firstrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 a, for example as elaborated onin connection with FIG. 3 .

According to further embodiments of the gateway circuit 400, the gatewaycircuit is further configured to determine the first condition based onthe first representation of the sensor signal 205 a to further implementthe functionality to cause safety measures as discussed for theElectronic Control Unit 200 of FIG. 2 . In such a setup the firstcondition could be forwarded to an ECU with less bus traffic, as it maybe sufficient to only transport the signaling of the first condition onthe bus. Such a setup of the gateway circuit 400 will require moreintelligence at the gateway circuit 400 while workload to identify thefirst condition is lifted from the ECU. It is further conceivable thatthe gateway circuit 400 signals the determination of the first conditionto an autonomous driving ECU in order to be taken into account by theautonomous driving system, too.

Further embodiments of a gateway circuit 400 serve as a gateway formultiple associated environmental sensors. An embodiment of such agateway circuit is illustrated in FIG. 6 . As compared to the gatewaycircuit of FIG. 5 , the gateway circuit 400 further comprises a secondsignal input 404 configured to receive a further sensor signal from asecond environmental sensor of the vehicle. Further, the first signaloutput 408 of the gateway circuit 400 is configured to forward a firstrepresentation of the further sensor signal 405 a to the airbag ECU.Similarly, the second signal output 410 is configured to forward asecond representation of the further sensor signal 405 b to the physicallayer of the communication system. Further embodiments may be designedto simultaneously serve as a gateway for an arbitrary number ofenvironmental sensors.

FIG. 7 schematically illustrates an example of a safety system for avehicle in which autonomous driving functionalities are also present andcontrolled by central ECU 660. In autonomous driving, the central ECU660, for example, decides as to whether to change a steering angle or aspeed of the vehicle. To this end, the resolution of the sensor data mayneed to be sufficient to create a model of the environment which isaccurate enough to avoid a collision with other vehicles orenvironmental objects and to decide on good driving commands forpassenger comfort and for energy efficiency. Autonomous drive systemsgenerally rely on multiple sensors to create a model of the environmentof the vehicle to be able to guide or drive the vehicle without or withhardly any human interaction. Depending on the implementation,autonomous driving functionalities may be restricted to some scenarios,e.g. to highway traffic, while it may not be fully available in others,e.g. in city traffic. Nonetheless, while the high-resolution output ofthe environmental sensors may not be permanently used for autonomousdriving, a first representation of the sensor signals having a lowerresolution may be continuously available as an input to the airbag ECU620 so as to enable the airbag ECU 620 to also use environmental dataalthough it might have a lower processing power than the central ECU 660for autonomous driving functions. While the high-resolution output ofthe environmental sensors may not be used for autonomous drivingfunctions, the output of the environmental sensor may nonetheless beupdated, e.g. more than 1 time per second, as an input to the airbagECU.

The safety system comprises a first environmental sensor 600 providingfirst sensor signals and a second environmental sensor 602 providingsecond sensor signals. In a setting supporting autonomous drivefunctions, it is desirable that the full environment of the vehicle isobserved, so that a first field of view 601 of the first environmentalsensor 600 and a second field of view 603 of the neighbored secondenvironmental sensor 602 are at least partially overlapping, resultingin an overlapping field of view 605. The sensors are preferablyimplemented such that the first sensor signal and the second sensorsignal are loosely coupled. Loosely coupling the sensors may not requireperfect synchronization of the coupled sensors. The use of embodimentsof airbag ECUs together with environmental sensors allows usinginformation of at least two environmental sensors together to determineconditions that give rise to safety measures which have not beenaccessible by conventional approaches, as will be explained next. It isto be understood that the use of two environmental sensors together,however may bring about some constraints with respect to the loosecoupling between the environmental sensors. A synchronization betweenthe two sensors should be good enough that an object 650 determined bythe first sensor 600 within the overlapping field of view 605can—without ambiguity—also be identified by the second sensor 602 withinthe overlapping field of view 605. Further, the coupling should be goodenough to allow determining the conditions sought for within theparticular implementation. For example, if the presence of an object 650shall be determined with a time resolution of 1 ms, it appears to beappropriate to loosely couple the environmental sensors such that theyare synchronized to one another with an uncertainty of less than 1 ms.Similar considerations apply for the accuracy the relative positionbetween the contributing sensors. When mounted to a vehicle the relativeposition of the sensors is typically fix and known. One may, understandloosely coupling the sensors as having the so coupled sensors timely andspatially aligned with sufficient precision to be able to determine thefirst condition and further conditions of interest. In other words, thetime synchronization between two loosely coupled environmental sensorsshould be such that detections of objects visible to both sensors (e.g.FFT peaks and objects as discussed with respect to FIG. 3 ) do not needto be time compensated between individual environmental sensors beforebeing used by postprocessing software within, e.g. an airbag ECU or anautomated drive ECU. Time compensation is the method used to compensatethe object movement between a reference time and the time itscharacteristics were measured (range, angle, Doppler). The looselycoupled approach allows not only to save computation time by avoidingcomputations related to the compensation but also by avoiding aresultant increased inaccuracy in the mathematic representation of thedetections (range, angle, Doppler-velocity, estimate of non-Dopplervelocity).

In order to support autonomous drive functions, further sensors 610 a to610 d are illustrated in FIG. 7 . The sensors 610 a to 610 d togetherwith first sensor 600 and second sensor 602 should be designed andconfigured to provide full coverage of the vehicles environment. Thesubsequent disclosure of the safety system, however, will focus onneighboring sensors 600 and 602 which appear sufficient to elaborate onsome new capabilities of an embodiment of an airbag ECU 620 whenemployed in a setup using environmental sensors.

In order to make additional use of loosely coupled sensors 600 and 602,a first gateway circuit 606 comprises a first signal output configuredto generate a first representation of the first sensor signal 607 and asecond signal output configured to forward a second representation ofthe first sensor signal to a physical layer of a communication system.The communication system forwards the second representation of the firstsensor signal to the central ECU 660. Likewise, a second gateway circuit608 comprises a first signal output configured to generate a firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal 609 and a second signaloutput configured to forward a second representation of the secondsensor signal to the physical layer via the communication system to thecentral ECU 660. The airbag ECU 620 is coupled to the first signaloutputs of the first gateway circuit 606 and the second gateway circuit608, respectively. Via associated gateway circuits 611 a, . . . , 611 d,the first representations of the sensor signals 612 a, . . . , 612 d ofthe remaining environmental sensors 610 a, . . . , 610 d is forwarded tothe airbag ECU 620 while the second representation of the sensor signalsof the remaining environmental sensors 610 a, . . . , 610 d areforwarded to the central ECU 660. The airbag ECU 620 is configured toidentify a first condition indicating a potential impact of an object tothe vehicle based on the first representation of the first sensorsignal, the first representation of the second sensor signal, or acombination of the first representation of the first sensor signal andthe first representation of the second sensor signal. In the event thatsuch a condition was determined, the airbag ECU 620 is furtherconfigured to generate an activation signal to cause a safety measure toprotect the passengers of the vehicle. In further embodiments, a singlegateway circuit capable to serve all environmental sensors 600, 602, and610 a to 610 d may be used, similar to the gateway circuit illustratedin FIG. 6 . Further embodiments may integrate one or all of the gatewaycircuits within the airbag ECU 620 or within the central ECU 660.

FIG. 7 illustrates one particular example of a condition that may bedetermined to cause the execution of safety measures. In particular, thecondition illustrated is the upcoming side impact of an object 650,which may be determined early enough to effectively fire side airbagsand to furthermore even cause additional reversible safety measures toprotect the passengers. Solid lines in FIG. 7 extending from the firstsensor 600 indicate the first sensor's field of view 601. Solid linesextending from the second sensor 602 indicate the second sensor's fieldof view 603. It will be noted that both sensors 600, 602 have anoverlapping, common field of view 605.

Now, suppose the object 650 is determined in the overlapping field ofview 605 in a first measurement by both of the loosely coupledenvironmental sensors 600 and 602. In a subsequent, second measurement,however, the object is only detected by one of the two sensors, saywithin the field of view 601 of the first environmental sensor 600 inits field of view 601. As indicated by a dashed arrow the object 650 hasmoved from the first position of the first measurement to the secondposition—indicated as a circle drawn in a broken line at the point intime of the second measurement.

This sequence of measurement results allows the airbag ECU to determinethat the object 650 moves towards the side of the vehicle withoutrequiring high computational effort to come to this conclusion. Thismay, for example, allow determining the condition that an impact of theobject 650 is to be expected, with a smaller latency as compared to anapproach relying on tracking the object's 650 trajectory based on theindividual sensor signals of first and second sensor 600, 602 as wouldbe an approach used by an autonomous driving system performed by say thecentral ECU 660.

In other words, the first representation of the first sensor signal andthe first representation of the second sensor signal may provide anestimate for a direction of movement of an object 650 within thepartially overlapping field of view 605 which can be used to causesafety measures in an embodiment of a safety system as illustrated inFIG. 7 . In particular, a respective first condition indicating a sideimpact may be identified based on a moving object 650 identified in oneof the first representation of the first sensor signal 607 and the firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal 609, after the object wasbefore detectable within the first representation of the first sensorsignal 607 and the first representation of the second sensor signal 609.Similar considerations may apply for predicting the time of the impact,by, for example, extrapolating the change of position between the twomeasurements into the future.

FIG. 8 schematically illustrates an embodiment of an environmentalsensor element 700 for a vehicle. The environmental sensor element 700is capable of providing a first representation of a sensor signal 205 aas well as a second representation of the sensor signal 205 b. Thesensor element 700 comprises a radar sensor or a lidar sensor as asensor 702. The sensor 700 provides a sensor signal covering a limitedfield of view 704, essentially defined by an opening angle θ. Theopening angle θ may be an angle in a plane or a solid angle. Theenvironmental sensor element 700 may be configured to provide the firstrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 a as well as the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 b. To this end, the sensorelement 700 may, for example, comprise a CPU or any other type of logiccircuit (not shown in FIG. 7 ) to generate the first and secondrepresentations or to convert the first representation into the secondrepresentation. The environmental sensor element 700 further comprisesan interface 706 couplable to a physical layer of a communicationsystem. The interface is configured to output the first representationof the sensor signal 205 a, the second representation of the sensorsignal 205 b, or both the first the representation of the sensor signal205 a, and the second representation of the sensor signal 205 b to thephysical layer in order to provide different representations of thesensor signal for an ECU as well as for other components within thesystem. According to some examples, the environmental sensor element 700may be configurable to output one of the three alternatives. If theenvironmental sensor element 700 is configurable, it may be used fordifferent vehicle architectures or different configurations of the samevehicle type can be easily implemented. Depending on the configuration,the environmental sensor element 700 may be used as an input for anairbag ECU, for an autonomous drive ECU, or for both ECU's at a time.Hence, and the use of a distinguished ECU for each configuration may beavoided.

According to some embodiments, the environmental sensor element 700 hasan interface that is configured to output the representations of thesensor signals using one more or sensor telegrams. In order to enablethe subsequent components to identify the different representationswithout a major analysis effort, the interface of the environmentalsensor element may insert a specific tag into individual sensortelegrams that indicates whether the individual sensor telegram carriesthe first representation of the sensor signal 205 a or the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal 205 b. The tags inserted or used todistinguish the different representations may correspond to the tagsdiscussed in connection with the gateway circuit 400 of FIG. 5 .

The aspects and features mentioned and described together with one ormore of the previously detailed embodiments and figures, may as well becombined with one or more of the other embodiments in order to replace alike feature of the other embodiment or in order to additionallyintroduce the feature to the other embodiment.

The description and drawings merely illustrate the principles of thedisclosure. Furthermore, all embodiments recited herein are principallyintended expressly to be only for pedagogical purposes to aid the readerin understanding the principles of the disclosure and the conceptscontributed by the inventor(s) to furthering the art. All statementsherein reciting principles, aspects, and embodiments of the disclosure,as well as specific embodiments thereof, are intended to encompassequivalents thereof.

Functions of various elements shown in the previous figures, includingany functional blocks labeled as “means”, “means for providing a sensorsignal”, “means for generating a transmit signal.”, “ECU” etc., may beimplemented in the form of dedicated hardware, such as “a signalprovider”, “a signal processing unit”, “a processor”, “a controller”,etc. as well as hardware capable of executing software in associationwith appropriate software. When provided by a processor, the functionsmay be provided by a single dedicated processor, by a single sharedprocessor, or by a plurality of individual processors, some of which orall of which may be shared. However, the term “processor” or“controller” is by far not limited to hardware exclusively capable ofexecuting software, but may include digital signal processor (DSP)hardware, network processor, application specific integrated circuit(ASIC), field programmable gate array (FPGA), read only memory (ROM) forstoring software, random access memory (RAM), and non-volatile storage.Other hardware, conventional and/or custom, may also be included.

The following claims are hereby incorporated into the detaileddescription, where each claim may stand on its own as a separateembodiment. While each claim may stand on its own as a separateembodiment, it is to be noted that—although a dependent claim may referin the claims to a specific combination with one or more otherclaims—other embodiments may also include a combination of the dependentclaim with the subject matter of each other dependent or independentclaim. Such combinations are explicitly proposed herein unless it isstated that a specific combination is not intended. Furthermore, it isintended to include also features of a claim to any other independentclaim even if this claim is not directly made dependent to theindependent claim.

What is claimed is:
 1. A safety system for a vehicle, the safety systemcomprising: a first environmental sensor configured to provide a firstsensor signal; a second environmental sensor configured to provide asecond sensor signal, wherein the first sensor signal and the secondsensor signal are loosely coupled and a field of view for the firstenvironmental sensor and the second environmental sensor are at leastpartially overlapping; a first gateway circuit comprising a first signaloutput configured to generate a first representation of the first sensorsignal, and a second signal output configured to forward a secondrepresentation of the first sensor signal to a physical layer of acommunication system; a second gateway circuit comprising a first signaloutput configured to generate a first representation of the secondsensor signal, and a second signal output configured to forward a secondrepresentation of the second sensor signal to the physical layer of thecommunication system; and an electronic control unit configured toidentify a first condition based on the first representation of thefirst sensor signal, the first representation of the second sensorsignal, or a combination of the first representation of the first sensorsignal and the first representation of the second sensor signal, whereinthe electronic control unit is further configured to generate anactivation signal in response to the first condition.
 2. The safetysystem according to claim 1, wherein the activation signal is at leastone selected from: a reversible activating signal for activating areversible safety measure, or an irreversible activating signal foractivating an irreversible safety measure.
 3. The safety systemaccording to claim 2, wherein the reversible activating signal isconfigured to cause at least one of: closing at least one windows of avehicle, closing at least one roof portion of the vehicle, tensioning atleast one seat belt of the vehicle, adjusting at least one seat of thevehicle, or suppressing an emergency breaking of a vehicle.
 4. Thesafety system according to claim 2 wherein the irreversible activatingsignal is configured to cause at least one selected from: an emergencybreaking of a vehicle, or a firing of an airbag.
 5. The safety systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the combination of the firstrepresentation of the first sensor signal and the first representationof the second sensor signal provides an estimate for a direction ofmovement for an object within the partially overlapping fields of view.6. The safety system according to claim 1, wherein the first conditionis identified based on a moving object identified in one of the firstrepresentation of the first sensor signal and the first representationof the second sensor signal, after the moving object was detectablewithin the first representation of the first sensor signal and the firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal.
 7. The safety systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the first environmental sensor and thesecond environmental sensor are implemented as radar sensors, a lidarsensors, or camera sensors.
 8. The safety system according to claim 1,further comprising an autonomous driving electronic control unitconfigured to receive the second representation of the first sensorsignal, the second representation of the second sensor signal, or acombination of the second representation of the first sensor signal andthe second sensor signal.
 9. The safety system according to claim 1,wherein: the first gateway circuit is configured to generate the firstrepresentation of the first sensor signal from the second representationof the first sensor signal; and the second gateway circuit is configuredto generate the first representation of the second sensor signal fromthe second representation of the second sensor signal.
 10. The safetysystem according to claim 1, wherein: the second representation of thefirst sensor signal has a higher resolution than the firstrepresentation of the first sensor signal for a first given instant ofsensor data in terms of at least one of angular resolution, spatialrange covered, or relative velocity; and the second representation ofthe second sensor signal has a higher resolution than the firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal for a second given instant ofsensor data in terms of at least one of angular resolution, spatialrange covered, or relative velocity.
 11. The safety system according toclaim 1, wherein the activation signal is configured to cause a changein a physical operation or a physical state of a vehicle.
 12. Anautomotive system comprising: a plurality of sensor sub-systems, eachsensor sub-system of the plurality of sensor sub-systems comprising asensor coupled to a respective gateway circuit, the respective gatewaycircuit configured to generate a first representation of a sensor signalprovided by the sensor and provide a second representation of the sensorsignal to a physical layer of a communication system, wherein the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal has a higher resolution than thefirst representation of the sensor signal; and an electronic controlunit configured to identify a first condition based on the firstrepresentation of the sensor signal from at least one of the pluralityof sensor sub-systems, wherein the electronic control unit is furtherconfigured to generate an activation signal in response to the firstcondition, wherein the activation signal is configured to cause a changein a physical operation or a physical state of a vehicle.
 13. Theautomotive system of claim 12, further comprising an autonomous driveelectronic control system coupled to the communication system andconfigured to receive the second representation of the sensor signalfrom at least one of the plurality of sensor sub-systems.
 14. Theautomotive system of claim 12, wherein at least two sensors of theplurality of sensor sub-systems has an overlapping field of view. 15.The automotive system of claim 14, wherein the at least two sensors ofthe plurality of sensor sub-systems comprise a radar sensors, lidarsensors, or camera sensors.
 16. The automotive system of claim 12,wherein the activation signal is configured to cause a deployment of anairbag.
 17. The automotive system of claim 12, wherein the secondrepresentation of the sensor signal has the higher resolution than thefirst representation of the sensor signal for a given instant of sensordata in terms of at least one of angular resolution, spatial rangecovered, or relative velocity.
 18. A method, comprising: providing afirst sensor signal by a first environmental sensor; providing a secondsensor signal by a second environmental sensor, wherein the first sensorsignal and the second sensor signal are loosely coupled and a field ofview for the first environmental sensor and the second environmentalsensor are at least partially overlapping; generating a firstrepresentation of the first sensor signal and a second representation ofthe first sensor signal by a first gateway circuit; forwarding thesecond representation of the first sensor signal to a physical layer ofa communication system; generating a first representation of the secondsensor signal and a second representation of the second sensor signal bya second gateway circuit; forwarding the second representation of thesecond sensor signal to the physical layer of the communication system;identifying, by an electronic control unit, a first condition based onthe first representation of the first sensor signal, the firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal, or a combination of thefirst representation of the first sensor signal and the firstrepresentation of the second sensor signal; and generating, by theelectronic control unit, an activation signal in response to the firstcondition.
 19. The method of claim 18, further comprising deploying anairbag in response to the activation signal.
 20. The method of claim 18,wherein: the second representation of the first sensor signal has ahigher resolution than the first representation of the first sensorsignal for a first given instant of sensor data in terms of at least oneof angular resolution, spatial range covered, or relative velocity; andthe second representation of the second sensor signal has a higherresolution than the first representation of the second sensor signal fora second given instant of sensor data in terms of at least one ofangular resolution, spatial range covered, or relative velocity.